The week started with an event that shocked not only the guards of the Sofia prison, but also Bulgarian politics. Convicted of drug trafficking and money laundering Evelin Banev - Brendo turned himself in to serve his sentence.
Exactly 16 years ago, Brendo's name appeared after the news about the brutal beating of the journalist Ognyan Stefanov. He was attacked minutes after meeting Brendo. And Banev got into a fist fight with the journalist's beaters. In “Against the Stream” Evgeny Genchev returns us to the scene of the crime.
Stefanov told in the program "On focus" that on the day in question, in front of a restaurant in the capital, he was met by a group of men who asked him if he was Ognyan Stefanov, after which they attacked him. “The injuries were terribly severe, the blood loss enormous,” he recalled, adding that he believed he had been hit with hammers and nails.
Stefanov said that during the beating he heard Brendo get involved. Later he found out that Banev even had injuries. “His intervention in any case diverted some of the attention to me, it is logical to think that I owe him my life. Whether it is so or not, I cannot say”, the journalist added.
Stefanov clarified that they are not friends with Brendo, they have seen each other several times.
“Alexei Petrov threatened me”, he said and added that he thought it was Petrov who organized the meeting in the restaurant in front of which the journalist was beaten up.
“Prison is not a place where a person can save his skin”, this is how Stefanov commented on the fact that Evelin Banev surrendered voluntarily.
The journalist said that for a long time he has been trying not to remember what happened years ago.